Absence of resourses, widowhood in patriarcachy

a complicity between civil law and customary law

Abstract

This article aims to study the widowhood of women in Africa as a form of symbolic, social, domestic and sexual violence, based on African literature of spanish and french expression. It is both a factor in representing violence against widows from an artistic, cultural and literary perspective. It does not ignore the socio-cultural factors and causes of violence against women in Africa. Consequently, the literature will be called upon to dialogue around the issue of violence against widowed women and social change, that is to say between vulnerability and subversion. This dialogue involves the analysis of the novel Ekomo (2008) by the equatorial guinean writer María Nsue Angüe and Co-épouses Et Co-veuves (2015) by the central african Adrienne Yabouza. He will also be interested in their positioning in the Africain literary field in the face of sexist dichotomies and the collusion that exists between customary law and civil law, in order to write the situation of widows in Africa in a patriarchal system. The victims of violence [widowed women] are highlighted through an explicit fictionalization of socio-cultural, and political realities. This shows how, using stylistic and narrative methods, literature is a privileged tool for pushing the boundaries of gender and contributes to the understanding of a situation of violence which is concealed.